Munir Sheikh

Munir Sheikh is a distinguished fellow and adjunct professor at
Queen’s University in Kingston and a Distinguished Visiting Scholar
at Carleton University in Ottawa. He has been appointed as co-Commissioner
of Ontario’s Social Assistance Review.

Before taking these appointments, he served as the Chief Statistician of
Canada. He was appointed to that position on June 16, 2008 by the Prime Minister.
He resigned from this position on July 21, 2010. As Chief Statistician, he was
instrumental in developing the Agency’s first ever Corporate Business Plan,
establishing a wide-ranging program to maintain the pre-eminence of Statistics
Canada in the international community of statistical organizations.

Mr. Sheikh has broad and varied experience in government, having held many senior
level positions. Mr. Sheikh was Deputy Minister of Labour and prior that, he was
Deputy Secretary to the Cabinet, Expenditure Review at the Privy Council Office.
In this capacity, he was responsible for developing the expenditure review proposals
that were approved by Cabinet and included in the 2005 Budget. These proposals included
the establishment of Service Canada.

He was also Associate Deputy Minister, first at Health Canada and then at Finance Canada.
Prior to that he was Senior Assistant Deputy Minister, Tax Policy at Finance Canada, where
he was responsible for managing the Canadian tax system. It was under his guidance that
the Government of Canada unveiled the $100 billion tax reduction package in the Economic
Statement and Budget Update of 2000. This was the largest ever federal tax reduction. The
package also included the indexation of Canada’s personal income tax, which put a stop to
an automatically rising tax burden. As Director of research at Finance, he played a key
role in the reform of the Canada Pension Plan to put it on a sound footing.

Mr. Sheikh holds a Doctorate in Economics from the University of Western Ontario and a
Masters in Economics from McMaster University. He has published extensively in academic
journals in the areas of international economics, macroeconomics and public finance. His
work has been widely quoted and reproduced in textbooks and included in books of collected
readings. He also taught at Carleton University and the University of Ottawa for many years.